I am thrilled to reveal the cover of my new book, Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education, on today’s National #TeachTruth Day of Action! 📚✨ Please pre-order the book today and join the struggle!

In recent years, nearly half of U.S. students have been subjected to laws mandating their teachers lie to them about systemic racism and oppression. Thousands of books have been banned from schools, teachers have been fired, and librarians have been threatened with arrest for honestly educating children about the history of oppression in this country. In Florida, where the official state curriculum shockingly declares slavery was of “personal benefit” to Black people, possessing a banned book can result in up to five years in jail.

For the past few years, I’ve been a part of the movement against these draconian laws, organizing efforts to ensure that the truth about racism and oppression is taught in our schools. While working on this book, I have witnessed firsthand the relentless attacks on antiracist education and the urgent need to defend students’ freedom to learn the truth about our history and the struggle for a better world.

Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education is my response to these challenges. Drawing on my experiences as a K-12 teacher and organizer, I spent years researching who was funding these anti-history laws, the role they play in shaping what kids learn, and how we can resist them. I wrote this book to expose how the playbook being used to attack education today has roots in McCarthyism’s Red Scare and Lavender Scare—and to draw lessons from freedom movements about how we can build a just education system.

At stake in this struggle is our ability to access systems of knowledge that challenge injustice.

The fight for liberatory education has a rich legacy, from resistance to anti-literacy laws for enslaved people to the Black Lives Matter at School movement today. Teach Truth is a call to defend honest education for our students, showing how we can reclaim suppressed history by creating beloved classroom communities and healthy social movements.

Join the #TeachTruth movement, pre-order “Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education,” and join us in the fight for honest education.

Thank you for your support,

Jesse Hagopian